


Desperation in a Perfect World

by Nordyr



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drunk Inspiration is Best Inspiration, F/F, I Don't Even Know, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-23 16:50:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9666422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nordyr/pseuds/Nordyr
Summary: One night, a pretty girl sits next to Clarke at the pub.Many nights later, she finds the girl again but doesn't get to sit next to her.Clarke knows the signs of falling too hard and too fast for someone you probably don't stand a chance with - and so she knows she's screwed.Right?





	

**Author's Note:**

> I came up with a really lame story on the bus home, so here. You can have it.  
> Clexa deserves better than my nights out.
> 
> I'm going to sleep now.

“Monty,” I tell the dark-haired boy with a grin, “get some more of these snacks for us.” 

He rolls his eyes with a wide-gasping grin that tells me he’s already too wasted to deny this request. “Why me?”

I puff out a breath. “We all know you’re special friends with Jasper.”

He rolls his eyes, _again_ (like seriously, could this guy regard us with more ridiculousness than he already does) and stands up from his seat anyway.

I put the last small pretzel-snack into my mouth, grinning as he pushes his way through the group of huddled chairs before moving towards the pub’s doors. 

“Oh, and get me another beer,” Bellamy throws after him, and I raise my own empty bottle in cheers. 

 

 

Monty is inside, probably exchanging some cheesy words that stutter on the line of bromance and romance, and another group of friends settles down next to us on the pub’s terrace. Three girls and one guy, all of them lighting a cigarette (as far as I noticed). Obviously that’s the reason they’re choosing a spot outside instead of the warm, cozy atmosphere of the pub’s interior. 

One of the girls takes the seat next to me, turning her body so she's facing her group of friends, and I try to ignore the wave of her sweet perfume. It mixes with the smell of tobacco and I take a hit from Octavia’s cigarette, blaming my impulsiveness on the drinks I’ve had.

Monty returns with a bowl of salty snacks and I grin at him, taking a handful of the mini-pretzels and making a challenging remark about Jasper the bartender before passing the bowl around to the others.

There’s soft laughter as the group at the table next to us stills and listens to my imitations of an exasperated bartender filling the bowl of snacks. I suddenly blush, because even though I am used to making strangers laugh before they become part of my group of friends, the dark-haired girl next to me is simply quiet as her friends throw me amused smiles. 

She has dark, wavy hair and piercing eyes who’s gaze I can’t keep for longer than 2 seconds. It makes my heart race and palms sweat and I’m not quite sure why. 

I copy the other strangers' friendly smiles as I pass them the bowl of snacks, telling them it’s on the house (Jasper is supposed to refill these things).

The small bowl reaches the girl next to me, who ignores it, caught up in a conversation with someone else, and I make an effort not to take it from her friend’s hand as he holds it out to me. 

“Come on,” I say to the girl sitting next to me, still unable to wipe the grin, “you know you want it.” It’s said in a low voice and I cringe at the way it sounds because, _what the actual hell, Clarke,_ but the girl slightly smiles without making eye contact and picks out a specific type of salty snack before handing the bowl back to me.

Our fingers brush only slightly and I try to ignore the spark I feel, because _surely_ she mustn’t have felt that too.

I go inside to use the bathroom and when I walk back through the bar towards the door, Raven and Monty join me on my way with their hands full of beer. Raven takes my seat and I take the one next to her, resisting the urge to tell her, _no, that’s my chair because it’s next to that pretty girl and I really like her even though she hasn’t spoken a word to me._

Because, well, that would just be awkward.

 

So, no. Instead, I settle down next to Raven and try to focus on the random conversations going around the table. Raven seems to know the woman that’s sitting across from the girl I was fascinated about while Octavia is getting rather friendly with a dark-skinned, muscled young man next to her.

I listen to their conversations, try to catch their names (because I might be able to find them on facebook later and find out who the dark-haired girl is that was sitting next to me) and wonder with slight anger why I haven’t been introduced to any of them before. 

 

After fifteen minutes, the small bowl of snacks is empty and the girl stands up from the group, pecking her friends on the cheek with reserved goodbyes and refusing their offers of staying any longer or joining them to a club before she walks off into the night.

I look at Raven, who is still wearing the same excited grin as though nothing has happened, as though the most beautiful girl in the world hadn’t just left, and as though she doesn’t know I really wish she hadn’t switched seats with me.

She doesn’t, obviously.

Until I fall quiet and she inquires what’s wrong.

And I say, "Nothing." 

She glances at the empty chair next to her, before exchanging an oddly familiar look with the brunette across from it (Anya, I had been told), and saying, 

“Damn, Griffin.”

 

* * *

 

Two weeks later I see the girl at the same pub again. Her eyes are focused on a sports match on the pub’s TV screen before she catches my gaze. I turn away immediately, not aware that I had been staring until her soul meets mine, and I focus on my hand of cards.

“Clarke. Your turn.”

I nod, play an eight of spades before glancing back at the brunette a couple tables away from me. The same dark, tall man from the other night has taken a seat next to her again, blocking her face from my view and I think it might be better this way.

 

* * *

 

She runs through my mind unconsciously, my eyes searching for her without knowing it while my friends drag me out to bars and clubs. The music is loud and I drown shot after shot, thinking it will make it easier if, unexpectedly, I was to find her making out with a random stranger.

After all, I didn’t even know her. So I shouldn’t be caring that much.

 

* * *

 

It’s two months later when I find her once again in that same bar, even though I didn’t allow myself to hope for her presence anymore. That one time, when she sat next to me outside, cigarette raised to her lips like she had only ever smoked while drunk, that was the closest I was ever going to get to her - and I had accepted that.

 

But now she sits inside, in front of the window, surrounded by her usual group of friends. I find Miller at the bar, using his position to order a little sooner than the others in line before my eyes spot her - that dark-haired girl with the perfect jawline and plump lips and soft eyes that don’t match her stoic expression at all.

It almost feels like a well-aimed attack by some unknown force. I vouch not to let it take the best of me and take my beer outside, to where my friends are huddled around the outside heater. It's busy and we stand right in front of the window, giving us a good view of the pub’s interior. 

The girl’s back is turned to the window and I roam my eyes over her dark curls, ignoring the way her friends seem to cast their gaze on me. A chuckle goes around the table and I wonder if the girl’s friends are referring to a joke about me ( _there’s a blonde girl desperately staring at you_ ) and the dark guy beside her moves his hand towards her neck, ruffling her hair affectionately. My stomach turns and before she has a chance to turn around and follow her friends’ line of sight, I turn around and laugh half-heartedly at a joke Raven made.

Octavia spots someone through the window, waving at some guy inside. I follow her gaze and find the friendly face of the same guy that had seemed so protective over the dark-haired girl. He waves back, causing Raven to jump into a waving-frenzy as well, and I decide to do the same. We wave stupidly and half-drunk, grinning at the unknown guy through the window before his gaze lands on Bellamy, who merely glances at him suspisciously. Octavia rolls her eyes and shuffles her way inside. I chug my beer and tell Raven to order me another one as she goes to refill our drinks.

 

 

I catch Octavia’s gaze. She is now seated in the dark guy’s lap and knocking her knuckles violently on the glass of the window. She motions for me to come inside and I raise my eyebrows, glancing around the group she’s surrounded by. My eyes linger only slightly on the dark-haired girl that has captured my attention many times before - because I know the signs of falling too hard and too fast for someone that you don’t stand a chance with.

Octavia nods and repeats the motion, urging me to join her. I sigh, although it’s only a pretentious act of unwillingness, before shrugging at the rest of my friends and making my way inside.

 

“’Sup, O. I see you’ve made some new friends.” My voice is raspy and I curse at myself for not sounding more sincere, more spontaneous, more _whatever_ makes people like you these days.

“This is Lincoln,” Octavia tells me with a grin and I nod my head at the dark, handsome guy. “And these,” she continues, “are his friends.”

_Friends._

Well, that’s good. No little sisters or girlfriends I have to take into consideration.

“Hi,” I stammer awkwardly, because what are you supposed to say to some random group of people staring up at you from their table in the corner of a busy pub?

They just nod at me, and I figure they must remember me from the sharing of bar snacks a few weeks ago - or at least, I hope they do. I made quite a good impression there, if I may say so myself.

There’s only one who responds verbally.

“Hi,” the girl that had been so quiet, so evasive before, replies and my heart skips a beat, because her voice is audible through the thrumming of music and murmuring of people and giggling from Octavia and everything else in existence.

It’s beautiful and my cheeks suddenly feel like they’re on fire, my mind spinning with the tipsy thought that perhaps I have only ever existed to hear this girl say _hi_ to me.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I register some of the others murmur forms of greetings as well, but they barely make it through my ears as I try to remember some social skills.

 

“Do you want something to drink?” I ask, and it was supposed to be a question for the whole group (because I just got paid and feel ridiculously rich) but instead my eyes stay fixed on the girl. Her drink is only half empty but she still nods in response, and I swallow down the feeling of butterflies that erupt in my stomach at the sight of her smile.

 

 

Jasper places the drinks on the bar and gives me his signature smile that says it’s on the house. I barely notice the way he moves to the next order with a knowing smirk before the green-eyed girl’s hand brushes against mine as she takes her own drink. (Yes, the color of her eyes is breathtakingly visible in the lights that hang above the bar.)

She smiles and takes a sip of her drink, and I wonder since when I have become the perfect stalker-prototype. (Remembering her friend’s names so I could find her on facebook, noticing her eyecolor at the first bright light - yeah, it’s pretty bad.)

 

“Good choice,” she says, motioning towards her drink as she takes another sip. 

I smile at her and stumble a little over my words. “It’s the pub’s signature drink. It’s what I usually have."

“I know,” she says.

And I think, oh.

Oh.

“So who’s that guy?” she asks me, nodding her head towards my friends outside. The only guy I can make out in our field of vision is Bellamy, and I chuckle as I answer.

“Basically both my and Octavia’s brother.” My gaze moves towards Octavia, still dangled up in the dark guy’s arms while giggling to some random words he said.

And for a moment I wonder if this mysterious girl’s interest is in Bellamy, and not me. Making sure I’m not a threat. She wouldn’t be the first.

“So who’s your guy?” I respond, motioning to the couple I was looking at.

“Lincoln. A good friend of mine and apparently your friend’s new love interest.”

Her voice is serious although she turns to give me an amused expression. Her answer releases a thousand strings of tension in my chest, and yet it is the sound of her voice that makes me smile, because it’s adorable and I find myself glancing back at my drink to avoid looking at her lips.

She sips her own drink and we remain quiet for a while, watching our friends interact as the rest of the group comes inside and joins the others.

 

“Took you long enough to buy me a drink,” she murmurs only loud enough for me to hear over the buzzing of the other people in the bar.

I look up at her, surprised and holding back a chuckle. “At least I still beat you to it.”

 

 

She places her empty glass on the counter and searches my eyes for something that I can’t name.

“Would you mind joining me for some fresh air?”

My lips tug up. “Well, no, I wouldn’t mind at all,” I respond, faking a British accent in a poor attempt to sound as fancy as she did.

Intimidating, fancy and unreadable. 

I don’t know how she does it, but it fascinates me immensely. 

 

 

I had expected her to light up a cigarette or join some random group of people that are huddled together under the pub’s heaters, but instead she stands silently in the night air, looking up at one of the streetlights.

A few snowflakes nestle inside her dark hair as they drift down from the sky, and she asks me, as if searching for a topic of small talk, “Do you like snow?”

I huff out a breath, sending a misty cloud through the dark air before standing next to her, looking up at the night as well. 

“Yeah,” I say, “I do. It makes the world seem white instead of grey for a while.”

Her bright eyes turn to me, something in between delight and surprise shining in them as she smiles.

“I’ve never heard it like that before,” she says and I shrug, because I’m not quite sure what else to say. 

It’s quiet for a while longer. We breathe in the cool air, a welcome change from the bar's stuffy scenery, until a shiver runs through her body and she moves back towards the pub’s doors, leaving me to follow her.

“I’m Lexa,” she says, glancing back at me. 

“Clarke,” I answer her, smile on my lips.

 

* * *

 

“Clarke.” Octavia’s voice is blurry and her arm still flung around Lincoln’s neck. “I know we’re sort of roommates and you’re gonna hate this, but you owe me one after that Niylah incident, so I’m gonna claim this one. I’m bringing this hottie home, just so you know.”

I groan, although it’s almost inaudible through the laughter around us, but I know my expression shows enough. 

The rest of my friends had gone home already as well, and I marvel at how fast time seems to be going when I spend it with Lexa. 

2 AM. Not bad. 

 

 

Octavia leaves and I find myself huddled on a couch in the corner of the pub with Lexa, a friend of hers and Jasper, who is supposed to be closing up the bar by now.

And I have no idea where I’m supposed to sleep tonight.

The apartment is not soundproof, so I’m not really considering that as an option. Octavia can have it for tonight. 

But there’s a beer in my hand and I push the thoughts away, focusing on the conversation between Jasper and Anya instead.

“Swiper the Fox.”

Anya raises an eyebrow and it’s possibly the perfect expression of disbelief at a ridiculous mentioning. “You’re kidding.”

Jasper’s eyes widen in defense. “Dude, that guy is freaky, okay?”

“Swiper the Fox was your childhood terror?”

Jasper shrugs, and I urge myself to remember this to embarrass him in the most unexpected moments.

 

* * *

 

He closes the blinds, turns the sign to ‘Closed’. Anya is off within seconds, murmuring something to Lexa that I didn’t get before disappearing. 

Jasper gives me some odd, sideways hug and he too is gone within moments, leaving only the dozing city to accompany Lexa and me.

“So have you decided where you’re going to sleep tonight?” She asks the question like it is the most ordinary thing in the world, and my answer is laced with a hint of embarrassed laughter.

“No.”

Her arm brushes against mine as we move down the street, walking in some unspoken direction that seems absolutely fine with me. The air smells of restaurants' dinner and spilled alcohol, yet still I can distinctly make out the smell of her perfume through the hazy night air.

“I’d offer you to stay at my place,” she begins, and in the corner of my eyes I see her turning to face me. “But I don’t know if that’s appropriate, since I haven’t even kissed you yet.”

We stop walking and I turn to her, not able to stop the smile from forming on my lips.

“Then maybe you should.”

A single streetlight reflects in her eyes and I’m not sure if it’s surprise or delight I find in them. Perhaps both. She glances down at my lips, brings her hand up to my cheek carefully as if asking for permission that she no longer needs.

I make it easier and close the distance.

Our lips touch and for some reason, I have the feeling they will do so a million times again.


End file.
